Undefeated by spiritual blindness

Isaiah 42:14-21 ¹⁴I have been silent for a long time. I have kept still. I have restrained myself. Like a woman giving birth, I will scream. I will gasp and pant. ¹⁵I will dry up mountains and hills. I will make all their grass wither. I will turn rivers into islands. I will dry up pools. ¹⁶I will lead the blind on a way they do not know. Along paths they do not know I will direct them. Ahead of them I will turn darkness into light and rough places into level ground. These are the promises I will accomplish for them. I will not abandon them. ¹⁷They will be turned back and be completely disgraced— those who trust in an idol, those who say to molten images, “You are our gods.” ¹⁸You deaf ones, listen! You blind ones, watch carefully so you can see! ¹⁹Who is so blind as my servant or so deaf as my messenger whom I sent? Who is so blind as my covenant partner and so blind as the servant of the Lord? ²⁰You see many things, but you do not observe. He opens his ears, but he does not hear. ²¹Because of his righteousness the Lord was pleased to make his law great and glorious.

The Psalmist prays for certain victory: “Rise up, O Lord! Save me, my God! Yes, you will strike all my enemies on the jaw. The teeth of the wicked you will break.” (Psalm 3:7)

Joseph was a farmer near Hebron in the hill country of Judea. He heard the prophet Isaiah was traveling through the Judean countryside sharing God’s message of judgment and promise.

When Isaiah stopped in Hebron, Joseph invited Isaiah to have dinner with his family in his home. After their meal of roasted lamb, wheat bread, vegetables and goat’s milk, they sat together in Joseph’s family room to talk.

As Isaiah looked around the room, he noticed the polished stone idol set prominently on the mantle. It had been cut and shaped and polished in the shape of a man. Earlier, Isaiah had noticed there was a wooden statue of a woman that had been carved and sanded and stained out of a wooden log

Joseph had seen Isaiah’s eyes drift toward his stone and wooden idols. Joseph had carefully done the work himself to create these icons for his household. He believed his stone male deity protected his home from disease and enemies. He believed his wooden female deity blessed his crops with productivity and his herds with fertility.

Though Joseph believed in the Lord, he kept his other deities around, too. He prayed to the Lord for salvation, but he prayed to his other gods for good weather and bountiful harvests. He trusted his Creator for everything … mostly. He reserved some trust for the idols he created out of one of the rocks he picked in his wheat field and out of one of the logs he cut to build his barn. … Just in case.

But Joseph’s prayers and priorities changed as soon as Isaiah began speaking.

Isaiah had never been shy about sharing God’s message. He boldly told his host, “Thank you for inviting me into your home and offering me dinner with your family. I couldn’t help but notice your wooden and stone icons. You seem very proud of them. … But God humbles the proud.”

Isaiah continued, “You shared your generosity with me. I want to share God’s generosity with you. That generosity comes in a gentle, but stern warning. Please take it to heart. The Lord will not give his glory to another or share his praise with idols” (Isaiah 42:8).

Then Isaiah gave a brief history lesson, “God blessed our ancestors by keeping them safe from the famine by bringing them out of Canaan into Egypt. Four hundred years later, he rescued them from slavery in Egypt and brought them back to the Promised Land of Canaan. The Lord expanded Israel’s kingdom through David and Solomon. Those blessings were visible to everyone. If that wasn’t enough, the Lord spoke clearly his message of judgment and grace through prophets like Elijah, Jeremiah and myself.”

“But the people became deaf to the Lord’s words. They became blind to his blessings. They didn’t see. They didn’t listen. Because of this, this is what the Lord says to all Israel, ‘You see many things, but you do not observe. He opens his ears, but he does not hear’ (Isaiah 42:20). They fashioned their own gods.”

Isaiah pointed directly at Joseph and said, “You, Joseph, fashioned your own gods!”

“This is what the Lord says to you and all Israel, ‘They will be turned back and be completely disgraced— those who trust in an idol, those who say to molten images, ‘You are our gods.’ You deaf ones, listen! You blind ones, watch carefully so you can see’ (Isaiah 42:17-18)! With your false gods, you have blinded yourself to the one true God.”

Then Isaiah’s voice softened, “Still the Lord is gracious. He is merciful. He continues to reveal his salvation in the coming Messiah. Because of his righteousness, the Lord is pleased to share his Word with you, which is always great and glorious” (Isaiah 42:21).

Isaiah paused to take a breath. Joseph used that time to get up and walk around the room. He sheepishly removed the stone statue off the mantle and the wooden carving from the kitchen counter.

After he returned, Isaiah continued speaking, “Blind, deaf Israel will not return to the Lord on his own. So the Lord sends his prophets to open your ears. He renews his promises to open your eyes. The Messiah is coming. He will be the Light of the world that shines salvation in the darkness. He is the Word of the Lord that called the world into existence. The coming Messiah will rescue you, Joseph, the nation of Israel, and all nations. He will rescue you from the dark and deafening dungeon you have created for yourselves.”

The Lord remains undefeated by spiritual blindness.

Joseph and the Old Testament Israelites were polytheists. They worshiped many gods. They put their faith in the Lord, plus other deities of their own making.

Generations later, we are no different. We are Christian polytheists.

Who are these gods? Martin Luther wrote in his Large Catechism: “That to which we look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart.”

Sunday mornings we might prostrate ourselves before the great and comfortable pillow god.

On the weekends, we will set up our collapsible thrones before the altar of our children’s athletics.

Every day, each us spends an average of over 3 hours exalting the deity of social media, games and time wasting in our phones.

Money, work, video games, TV binging, music, vacations – these are our gods. These are the deities we have fashioned with our own hands. They are the idols we can hold in our own hands. These are the polytheistic gods we sill worship and hold dear.

Again Luther writes, “Anything on which your heart relies and depends, that is really your God.”

God has given us his Ten Commandments. But there is really only one commandment and only one sin. That one commandment is, “You shall have no other gods.” That one sin is idolatry. If we could keep this one commandment, if we could fear, love and trust in God above all things – then we would never break the other commandments. But because we do fear, love and trust in things above God – because we are blind and deaf idolaters – we break every other commandment. Because our hearts are idol factories whose doors never close, our lives are full of repercussions from other gods. For they will always bring disappointment.

Isaiah warns that judgment will come on those who have been blind and deaf to the true God. “Those who trust in an idol … will be turned back and be completely disgraced.” Because the Israelites had been carried away by their spiritual blindness and deafness, they would be carried away by the Babylonians.

Is it possible that things are happening right now as a result of our country’s and our world’s collective spiritual blindness and deafness? Schools and sports canceled. The stock market plummeting. Toilet paper and hand sanitizer saved until Judgment Day.

The Babylonian captors had carried away God’s chosen people. For a time, it looked like God’s enemies had defeated God’s people. It looked like God was defeated and sitting and sulking on the sidelines.

But God was just waiting. He was waiting until Israel’s eyes were opened and their ears unstopped. The Lord says, “I have been silent for a long time. I have kept still. I have restrained myself. Like a woman giving birth, I will scream. I will gasp and pant.” The Lord uses graphic language to describe how he was holding back. He allowed his children to learn a lesson.

REM’s song, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” has been the soundtrack of this past week. Could it be that the Lord is holding back? He is sitting on the sideline. He is watching and waiting. He is letting his people fail and fall.

So our spiritual blindness is discovered by us. So our spiritual deafness is heard by us. So we fall on our knees in repentance before the one true God. So we look to the Lord for healing. We listen to the Lord’s voice for calm. We see the false gods we have created for ourselves. We hear the praise we have offered to our idols.

The Lord allows calamity. The Lord permits catastrophe. So we stop what we are doing. We smash our idols. We break our bad habits. We reexamine our priorities. We repent of our polytheistic worship. We pay attention to the Lord and to the Lord alone.

The Lord says, “I will lead the blind on a way they do not know. Along paths they do not know I will direct them. Ahead of them I will turn darkness into light and rough places into level ground. These are the promises I will accomplish for them. I will not abandon them.” God steps in to act! God leads the blind – those who are troubled by their own sinful disobedience and the dark despair it brings. He gives them spiritual sight they could not know on their own. This is a path that is unfamiliar to them because it is a path only God can lead them through. He guides us spiritually blind sinners down the path of salvation using his Word and Sacraments.

Fellow blind and deaf polytheists, open your eyes. See Christ your only Savior Open your ears. Hear the voice of the Lord in his Word. Taste and see that the Lord is good in his Sacrament.

God did not remain silent or turn a blind eye to the plight of this world. Nor did he sit in heaven and bark down orders that we must trust him. God entered this dark, noisy world of sin as the Christ.

On a dark spring Friday, it appeared as if the darkness had won. It looked like the Light of the world had been extinguished on the cross and buried in the tomb. But the Light of the world defeated the darkness of sin and Satan on that dark cross. The Light of the World shattered the darkness of death when it burst forth from the tomb on Easter dawn.

It seemed as if the Word of the Lord had been silenced on Good Friday. But the voice of the Lord was never stronger or bolder then when Christ comforted the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” or when he breathed his last calling out, “It is finished!”

With the coronavirus outbreak there are two new deities that have been promoted – apathy and panic. As Christians we travel the Lutheran middle road between apathy and panic. We carefully decide whether we are testing God or trusting God. So we wash our hands, cover our coughs, use common sense when we feel sick and trust in the Lord.

We keep talking to the Lord in prayer. We continue listening to the Lord in his Word. We continue to gather for worship. We won’t allow the idols of panic or apathy to rule our hearts. That’s where we must allow the Lord to reign supreme.

Martin Luther was correct when he said that the Church was needed most in times of war and plague. So in times of war and plague, panic and apathy and our polytheistic culture, always remember that the Lord is undefeated by our spiritual blindness. Amen.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:57) Amen.